1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of operating a photosensitive material processing apparatus for processing a photosensitive material by immersing the photosensitive material in processing solutions stored in a series of processing tanks. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method of operating a photosensitive material processing apparatus such as a printer processor in which conveying rollers nip a photosensitive material and convey the photosensitive material in respective processing tanks.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a plurality of processing tanks which store water or processing solution for color development, bleach-fixing, rinsing, stabilization and the like are set in a photosensitive material processing apparatus (for example, a printer processor or the like) which is an automatic photo processor. A photosensitive material such as a photographic printing paper is sequentially conveyed into these processing tanks, and is immersed while being conveyed to thereby be processed.
A processing rack provided with plural sets of conveying rollers, each set having plural rollers, is inserted in each processing tank. During processing, these conveying rollers nip the photosensitive material therebetween such that the photosensitive material can be conveyed along the rack.
Usually materials such as silver, sulfides and the like are suspended in the processing solution. Therefore, there is the possibility that some of such suspended materials may deposit on the conveying rollers at the time the conveying rollers are stopped.
A photo processing laboratory generally stops operation of their photosensitive material processing apparatus in the evening, and starts operation up again either the next morning or the morning two days later (in the case that the next morning is a holiday, for example). Thus, when a photosensitive material processing apparatus which has been stopped for hours or days is started again, the materials deposited on the conveying rollers may adhere to the first photosensitive material passing between the conveying rollers after starting the apparatus. Such a transfer of deposited materials onto to the photosensitive material results in degradation of the quality of the photosensitive material.
In short, if a motor for rotating the conveying rollers has not been driven for a long time, the materials suspended in the processing solution tend to be deposited on the conveying rollers, and form precipitates thereon as time passes. Then, at the time when the conveying rollers start to rotate, the materials which have precipitated on the conveying rollers are likely to be transferred to the photosensitive material, and this inevitably causes dirtying of the photosensitive material.